Think, if you can, of a whole winter passing in Westchester County
without its storming one or more times on any single solitary Saturday
or Sunday or holiday! Christmas Day, even, some of the men played tennis
out-of-doors. The balls were cold and didn't bounce very high, and all
the men who played wanted to sit in the bar and talk stocks, but
otherwise it made a pretty good game. Often, because our guests were so
disagreeable about the money they had lost or were losing, we decided
not to give any more parties, but when we thought that fresh air was
good for our friends, whether they liked it or not, of course we had to
keep on asking them. And, besides, we were very much set on the idea
that I have referred to, and there was always a chance of
plausible weather.
It did not come till May. But then it "came good," as Sally said. It
"came good" and it came opportunely. Everything was right. We had the
right guests; we had the right situation in Wall Street, and the weather
was right. It came out of the north-east, darkly blowing (this was
Saturday, just after the usual motor-boat load and their afternoon
editions had been landed), and at first it made the Sound, and even the
sheltered narrows between the island and the main-land, look pancake-flat
and oily. Then it turned the Sound into a kind of incoming gray, striped
with white; and then into clean white, wonderfully bright and staring
under the dark clouds. I never saw a finer storm come up finer. But
nobody would go out to the point to see it come. The Stock Exchange had
closed on the verge of panic (that was its chronic Saturday closing last
winter) and you couldn't get the men or women away from the thought of
what _might_ happen Monday. "Good heavens," said Billoo, "think of poor
Sharply on his way home from Europe! Can't get to Wall Street before
Wednesday, and God knows what he'll find when he gets there."
"What good would it do him to get there before?" I asked. "Wouldn't he
sail right in and do the wrong thing, just as everybody has done
all winter?"
"You don't understand, Sam," said Billoo, very lugubriously; and then he
annihilated me by banging his fist on a table and saying, "_At least
he'd be on the spot, wouldn't he_?"
"Oh," I said, "if you put it that way, I admit that that's just where he
would be. Will anybody come and have a look at the fine young storm that
I'm having served?"
"Not now, Sam--not now," said Billoo, as if the storm would always stay
just where, and as, it was; and nobody else said anything. The men
wanted to shout and get angry and make dismal prophecies, and the women
wanted to stay and hear them, and egg them on, and decide what they
would buy or sell on Monday.
"All right, Billoo-on-the-spot," I said. "Sally--?"
Sally was glad to come. And first we went out on the point and had a
good look at the storm. The waves at our feet were breaking big and
wild, the wind was groaning and howling as if it had a mortal
stomach-ache, and about a mile out was a kind of thick curtain of
perpendicular lines, with dark, squally shadows at its base.
"Sam!" cried Sally, "it's snow--snow," and she began to jump up and
down.
In a minute or two flakes began to hit us wet slaps in the face, and we
took hands and danced, and then ran (there must have been something
intoxicating about that storm) all the way to the pier. And there was
the captain of the motor-boat just stepping ashore.
"The man himself," said Sally.
"Captain," said I, "how are we off for boats?"
By good-luck there were in commission only the motor-boat, and the
row-boat that she towed behind, and a canoe in the loft of the
boat-house.
"Captain," I said, "take the _Hobo_ (that was the name of the
motor-boat) and her tender to City Island, and don't come back till
Wednesday morning, in time for the Wall Street special."
"When you get to City Island," said Sally, "try to look crippled."
"Not you," I said, "but the _Hobo_."
"Tell them," said Sally, "if they ask questions, that you were blown
from your moorings, and that you couldn't get back in the teeth of the
gale because--because--"
"Because," said I, "your cylinders slipped, and your clutch missed
fire, and your carbureter was full of prunes."
"In other words," said Sally, "if anybody ever asks you anything about
anything--lie."
We gave him a lot more instructions, and some eloquent money, and he
said, "Very good, ma'am," to me, and "Very good, miss," to Sally, and
pretty soon he, and the _Hobo_, and the engineer, and the _Hobo's_ crew
of one, and the tender were neatly blown from their moorings, and
drifted helplessly toward City Island at the rate of twenty-two miles an
hour. Then Sally and I (it was snowing hard, now) climbed into the loft
of the boat-house, and _fixed_ the canoe.
"There," said Sally, putting down her little hatchet, "I don't believe
the most God-fearing banker in this world would put to sea in that!
Well, Sam, we've done it now."
"We have," said I.
"Will Monday never come?" said Sally.
"Stop," said I; "the telephone."
Idle Island was moored to the mainland by a telephone cable. It took us
nearly an hour to find where this slipped into the water. And we were
tired and hungry and wet and cold, but we simply had to persevere. It
was frightful. At length we found the thing--it looked like a slimy
black snake--and we cut it, where the water was a foot deep--the water
bit my wrists and ankles as sharply as if it had been sharks--and went
back to the house through the storm.
It was as black as night (the weather, not the house), snowing furiously
and howling. We crept into the house like a couple of sneak-thieves, and
heard Billoo at his very loudest shouting:
"I had Morgan on the wire all right--and the fool operator cut me off!"
Sally snipped her wet fingers in my face.
"Hello, fool operator," she said.
"Hello, yourself," said I. "But oh, Sally, listen to that wind, and tell
me how it sounds to you. A wet hug if you guess the answer."
"To me," said Sally, "it sounds plausible." And she got herself hugged.